Chapter 62 – Artsy Fartsy

Chloe put on her sunglasses and set off, with no particular direction, except, of course, roughly toward home. She could still take the bus or call a cab after she’d spoken to Morgen, whose number she was just dialing.

This time she even picked up after the first ring. “How was it?”

“He knows something.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Chloe told her everything, from Daniel’s unrequited crush on Samantha, the rejection, what he’d said about the tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship between Samantha and Daz, right up to the moment his face had gone a little off the rails after she’d thrown Valeria’s name into the mix.

“He also asked me if I’d been to her parties,” Chloe said. “And when I said yes, he just said that then I’d know how things work. And then he changed the subject so fast, it was like someone’d pulled the plug, and we were back to talking about egg sandwiches.”

Morgan was silent for a moment. “To be honest, that doesn’t surprise me. I mean, he’s under exclusive contract with Dirty Dreams and is considered Valeria’s golden boy, of course he knows things and I guess it’s not smart talking shit about your employer like that. But if he’s so scared that he immediately cuts the conversation short, even though he was the one who brought it up in the first place…” She whistled softly through her teeth. “Then what he knows is probably pretty sensitive, and he realized he’d already said too much.”

“Or he’s got skeletons in his own closet.”

“That’s possible, too.” A pause. “What does your gut tell you? Do you think he could have had something to do with Samantha’s death?”

“No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think so. He seemed… I don’t know, he seemed really sad when he talked about her, and he was evasive when I mentioned Valeria’s name, but not as if he had a guilty conscience or was hiding something he’d done.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“Nothing, but…” Morgan’s voice had taken on a tone that sounded deliberately casual. “Don’t take this the wrong way, please, but you sound a little like he has made quite a strong impression on you.”

“My assessment is based on what I’ve observed, Morgan, not on what we did during filming or-“

“I didn’t say that at all.”

“But that’s what you meant.”

“I didn’t. Well, maybe a little.” Morgan sighed. “Sorry. Maybe that wasn’t fair.”

A few seconds of silence, with only the street noise between them.

“Did you…?” Morgan started, paused, then started again. “Was the shoot okay? I mean, did you have fun?”

“Yes,” Chloe said. The word came out quieter than she’d intended. “Yes, I had fun.”

“Oh, good,” Morgan said. “That’s… good.”

“I’m really trying to keep that separate.”

“I believe you. Really.”

Chloe sighed. She had to change the subject somehow. Luckily, Morgan beat her to it.

“So, you haven’t forgotten about tonight, have you?” Morgan asked, her voice lighter again. “The gallery opening, free drinks in exchange for awful art, a little moral support for me?”

“Sure! But you still need to let me know exactly when and where, right?”

“I’ll send you the address. It’s supposed to start at eight, but let’s meet ten minutes early. And dress up a bit, they’re insisting on cocktail attire, so I have to spruce myself up a little, too.”

“Sure, I will!”

“See you later, Chloe.”

“See you later.”

Chloe ended up calling a cab after all. She had to take a proper shower, change clothes later and she really wanted to lie down for a bit beforehand, and it was all starting to take up so much time again.

~

Morgan was standing in front of the gallery entrance, hands in her pockets, and Chloe almost didn’t recognize her.

Instead of the usual jeans, T-shirt, and thin leather jacket, which she seemed to wear even when it was a hundred degrees, Morgan was wearing a well-tailored dark blue pantsuit with a simple white blouse underneath. Her short, wavy black hair looked freshly brushed, and even her sneakers looked new.

Huh.

Morgan saw her, smiled, and walked over.

“Hey! Oh wow.” Morgan’s gaze briefly swept down Chloe’s body, taking in the simple black cocktail dress and the high heels. “You look great.”

“Me? You look great,” Chloe said, smiling.

Morgan looked down at herself, as if she wasn’t quite sure. “I’ve had this thing in my closet for three years now, but I’ve never worn it. Luckily, no one will even notice me if you’re standing next to me.”

Chloe laughed. “Thanks, but I’m definitely noticing you.”

“Enough already, I’m blushing. Let’s go inside!” Morgan held the door open for her and they went in.

It was already crowded inside, and visitors were scattered around in small groups, most of them dressed in black, some wearing glasses as big as airplane windows, and they all looked very serious.

Morgan got them two glasses of white wine and pressed one of them into Chloe’s hand before they began their tour.

“So. Do you know anything about contemporary art?”

“Not at all.”

“Great, neither do I.”

The first piece they stopped at was an installation in the corner of the main room. An empty area about a hundred square feet in size, marked off by a thin rope. There was nothing inside. It was just the floor, the walls, and the rope.

Chloe leaned in toward the small description panel on the wall.

“The Absence,” she read aloud. “In this empty space, Jinxhe Xho confronts viewers with the deliberate absence of the artistic creative process, in which the viewers’ expectations become the canvas through which the art finds expression.” She looked at Morgan. “Twenty thousand dollars.”

Morgan sipped her wine and stared at the empty space with a long, expressionless gaze. “Too bad,” she said dryly. “I mean, I didn’t create any art last week either, and I had no idea I could make twenty thousand dollars from it.”

Chloe snorted so loudly that a young man with a big mustache in a charcoal turtleneck, who was standing next to them, turned toward them, looking quite offended.

The next piece Morgan wanted to stop at was a perfectly ordinary steam iron, hanging from the ceiling by a wire and rotating slowly.

“Suspended Emancipation,” Morgan read aloud this time. “By removing a household appliance from the context of its purpose, this installation by Buttonhole Miller points to the invisible unequal distribution of care work in late-capitalist patriarchy.”

Chloe stared at the iron, which was spinning calmly in a circle. “So? How much?”

Morgan looked. “Twelve thousand. Do you think it’ll go up in value if I hang myself next to it?”

Chloe gave her a light punch on the shoulder but couldn’t help but laugh.

They continued on, room by room, got some more wine, and with each piece, Morgan’s jokes grew edgier and Chloe’s self-control more fragile. They came to a sculpture that was either some kind of deformed bird or maybe an aggressive feathered potato and was supposed to cost a whopping sixty thousand dollars.

Morgan stopped in front of the potato, tilted her head, and muttered quietly. “You know what, I’m pretty sure that’s my spirit animal. The aggressive vibe, the disheveled hair, and to top it all off it costs exactly as much as I make in a year after taxes.”

Chloe giggled into her wine glass, and once again a few heads turned toward them, but Chloe and Morgan were having too much fun to care much about it.

They stopped in one of the back rooms, in front of a gradient oil painting on the wall that transitioned from dark blue to red and it was the first piece of art that actually didn’t look half bad. Or maybe that was just the wine.

“I’m so glad you came,” Morgan said, leaning her shoulder against the wall. “It’s so much better to experience all this together.”

“Thanks for inviting me, really,” she said, looking at Morgan. “I sometimes forget that there are other things besides all the shoots and the investigation and…” She paused briefly, searching for the right word. “All the madness that makes up my life at the moment.”

“Same here,” she said quietly. “Well, not exactly the same, but you know what I mean.”

For a moment, they just stood there, content, silent and without the urge to fill the silence with words, looking at the gallery’s only decent piece of art.

Then Morgan took a deep breath. “Shall we get out of here and grab something to eat before I start seriously considering hanging myself next to the iron?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

~

The air outside was slowly becoming pleasant, and Valley City glowed in that special orange evening light the city sometimes had when the wind was just right and the smog and the setting sun worked together.

On a whim, Chloe playfully hooked her arm through Morgan’s, and Morgan looked up briefly, surprised by the touch, but it didn’t seem to bother her, quite the opposite.

“Okay, local,” Chloe said as they walked down the street. “Where can we get a decent meal around here at this time of night?”

“You won’t believe it, but I know a pretty good hot dog stand just around the corner.”

Chloe laughed out loud. “Oooh, from the hot dog series?”

“Yup. I actually found that place nearby, Werner’s Wieners, surprisingly good.” She shook her head. “So, if someone had told me back in college that I’d one day become the leading hot dog journalist in Valley City…”

“What would you have said?”

“Then I would have said, ‘Holy crap, yeah man, how much does that pay?'”

Chloe giggled and squeezed Morgan’s arm. On the way to Werner’s Wieners Morgan began, to tell her about a colleague at the Times who had accidentally published an obituary last week for someone who was still alive, and about the resulting apology call, which must have been one of the most embarrassing phone calls in the history of journalism, but now at least gave her and Morgan a good laugh.

Werner’s Wieners turned out to be a small shack with a narrow counter, for which they were a bit overdressed, though that didn’t bother the older man in an apron with bushy eyebrows, who slid their two hot dogs across the counter without a word.

They ate standing outside, watching as the city slowly grew darker, and when they were done, Morgan wiped her fingers on a napkin and looked at Chloe, who wasn’t really in the mood to say goodbye yet.

“I’m glad we did this today.” Morgan’s voice was calm.

“Yeah,” Chloe said. “Me too.”

Chloe hesitated for a moment. Then she took a step forward, wrapped her arms around Morgan, and hugged her tightly. Morgan returned the hug, and her warm, calloused climber’s hands rested on Chloe’s bare back, holding her just as tightly.

“Make sure you get home safely, okay?”

“You too.”

Morgan raised her hand, turned around, and walked down the street as Chloe took out her phone to call a cab.